Team identifying marine zones to study value of environment
Published: Globe and Mail, November 28, 2006
DEBORAH JONES, VANCOUVER
To some people the sight of a meadow, a stretch of river or a stand of leafy trees swaying in the breeze on a hilltop might signify beauty, spirituality or perhaps an opportunity to make money by "improvement" or "development." Ecologist Kai Chan looks at such things from the dollars-and-cents standpoint of what he calls "ecosystem services" -- the value of the natural environment to humans.
As head of a research team that includes a fisheries economist, an anthropologist and the British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Dr. Chan is identifying marine zones off the B.C. coast for in-depth study.
The coast is rife with conflicts between competing demands on resources -- such as those between fishermen harvesting wild fish and fish farmers, or foresters who have an impact on watersheds and recreational users, Dr. Chan says. He says his research aims to assist decision makers in their plans for resource use.
The Canadian ecosystems project, still in its infancy, is an offshoot of an ambitious global project Dr. Chan has been involved with to develop a new scientific model to measure the value of defined regions of forests, grassland, waterways -- even the air -- to human communities.
He was a lead researcher of a groundbreaking ecosystem study in California, with Stanford University biologist Gretchen Daily. Their report, published last month in the Public Library of Science Biology journal, focused on the California coast between Santa Barbara and San Francisco, and assessed the value of carbon storage, flood control, forage production for livestock, outdoor recreation, pollination of crops such as strawberries and provision of water.
The B.C. project is related, but focuses on marine environments.
Too often, decision makers make plans with little understanding of hidden or future environmental issues that can cause economic loss or even death, says Dr. Chan, a Toronto native who recently moved from Stanford to take up a post at the University of British Columbia.
Devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 was worsened by the lack of natural buffers on the coastline, which shows a failure to assess the value of nature's "services," he says.
When Katrina smashed into New Orleans, the wetlands that could have buffered its force were diminished because they'd been used for development. More than 1,800 people died and the damage to the U.S. economy was estimated at $150-billion, he says.
In East Asia, mangrove forests were wiped out to build shrimp farms. If the mangroves had been considered valuable to humans, he said, the shore would have had more protection when the tsunami hit, killing about 230,000 people.
If decision makers had been able to place a real value on mangroves and wetlands, the economic appeal of using them for shrimp farms and land development could have been assessed, and the ecosystems would have been protected, he says.
The B.C. ecosystem research is part of a growing trend among scientists and economists to measure the natural world in economic terms. Other examples are the British report by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, that estimated global climate change will cost as much as $7-trillion and turn 200 million people into environmental refugees. Another is New York City's purchase throughout the 1990s of land in the watershed that provides its drinking water.
Protecting the natural watershed let New York protect its water quality and avoid the heavy cost of building a water-treatment plant, says Taylor Ricketts, a landscape ecologist with the Washington office of the World Wildlife Fund, who is involved with Dr. Chan on the Natural Capital Project.
Dr. Ricketts worked on another research project to measure the value of tropical forests in pollination "services" in Costa Rica. Researchers found that where coffee farms were near untouched tropical forests, greater pollination by wild bees produced a 20-per-cent greater yield of coffee. The forest was subsidizing farmers, for free.
"It added up to $60,000 a year in added revenue for one farm," Dr. Ricketts said. "People are beginning to realize and understand there are real economic benefits we get from healthy ecosystems, worth significant amounts of money," he said. "That's a great thing, I think, because it makes people aware of the ways in which we depend on ecosystems and makes conservation more mainstream than special-interest."
The economic arguments are increasingly being made, added Dr. Ricketts, because "we are newly able to do it. We have better understanding of the ecological things that ecosystems do for us and we have a better understanding of how to value them economically. We're newly able because of a bunch of research to place dollar value on ecosystem services, by ecologists and economists. . . . People are beginning to believe the numbers, and you are beginning to hear about it outside of science journals."
Copyright Deborah Jones 2006
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Ecosystem services model launched in Washington
Scientists and economists can now answer questions like 'what is a honeybee worth?' and measure the economic costs and benefits of ecosystems to human life.
Published: Agence France-Presse, Nov. 1, 2006
By Deborah Jones
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP)—A scientific model will answer questions like 'what is a honeybee worth?' and measure the economic costs and benefits of ecosystems to human life, Canadian and US scientists said.
Researcher Kai Chan of the University of British Columbia said the model will help estimate the dollar value to people of such "ecosystem services" as mangroves and wetlands.
Such modeling could allow decision-makers to include the costs and benefits of nature conservation when planning developments such as housing, agriculture zones or hydroelectric dams. Chan said the first part of the model will be put in place in China, Tanzania, Hawaii and the west coast of the United States over the next eight months.
The model was launched late Tuesday in Washington by the World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy and scientists from Stanford University in California and the University of British Columbia. Chan said Wednesday development plans are often made with little understanding of hidden or future environmental issues that can cause economic loss and even death.
Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, and the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were exacerbated by failure to assess the value of nature's "services" in protecting coastlines. Because US authorities had permitted development to shrink and damage wetlands on Louisiana's coast, there was no natural buffer when Katrina hit New Orleans at a cost to the US economy of some 150 billion dollars, he said.
Throughout Southeast Asia, shrimp farming had wiped out so much mangrove forest that there was nothing to protect against the tsunami, which hit land at full force, killing about 230,000 people.
Chan said that until now there has been no way to effectively measure the value of nature to people, although he noted in some ways its value is "infinite" because without nature people cannot survive. "Efforts to save wildlife often play out within a win-lose framework that pits conservation against economic opportunity," said Chan.
Chen was lead researcher in a study with Stanford biologist Gretchen Daily titled "Conservation Planning for Ecosystem Services" that measured the value of ecosystem services on a section of the coast in the US state of California. The researchers assessed carbon storage, flood control, forage production, outdoor recreation, pollination of crops such as strawberries and provision of water.
The new model is part of a trend for scientists and economists to measure the natural world in economic terms.
Earlier this week a British report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warned that worldwide inaction over climate change could cost the equivalent of between five and 20 percent of global gross domestic product every year.
Copyright Deborah Jones 2006
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